Learn the so-called "Franco-Arabic" transliteration system
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Intro |
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| Hi everybody! Nora here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Arabic questions. |
| The Question |
| The question for this lesson is: How come there are numbers in between letters when people write Arabic in Latin letters? |
| Explanation |
| There are many ways to transliterate Arabic. You can use IPA, DIN, and many other systems. In this lesson, we’re going to discuss a system that has been around for more than a decade now, called the "Franco-Arabic." |
| Franco-Arabic is used between friends and on social media. Arabic learners find it weird when they see it for the first time because it substitutes Arabic sounds with numbers! |
| Franco-Arabic uses numbers for sounds that don't exist in English. Sounds that do exist in English, however, are spelled with the same Latin letters. Franco-Arabic is commonly used for most spoken Arabic dialects. |
| Let's look at the sounds that don't exist in English and how they’re substituted in Franco-Arabic. |
| Here are the most commonly used ones: |
| Two is used to indicate any glottal stop, which is the ء sound. Three indicates ع, |
| while three with an apostrophe stands for غ. |
| 5 or 7’ indicate خ, |
| while 7 stands for ح. |
| The less commonly used ones are the following: |
| 4 indicating ش. |
| 6 indicating ط. |
| 8 indicating ق. |
| 9 indicating ص. |
| And 9’ indicating ض. |
| As you can see, this second group has close phonemes in English, respectively sh, t, q, s, and d. So, these Latin letters are often used instead of the numbers. |
| These numbers were chosen because they look similar to their corresponding letters in Arabic. Look closely. Do you see the resemblance? |
| Now let's see what some sentences in Egyptian Arabic, for instance, looks like in Franco-Arabic. This way it won't be a surprise next time your Arabic-speaking friend sends you a text in Franco-Arabic! |
| English / Egyptian Arabic |
| Franco-Arabic /Standard romanization |
| “How are you? How are things?” / إزَّيَّك, عامِل إيه؟ |
| ezzayyak, 3amel eh? / ʾezzayyak, ʿāmel ʾeīh? |
| “What happened?” / خير, حَصَل إيه؟ |
| 5eer, 7asal eh? or 7'eer, 7asal eh? / ḫīr, ḥaṣal ʾeīh? |
| “Patience is good.” (Egyptian proverb) / الصَبر حِلو. |
| el 9abr 7elw or el sabr 7elw. / ālṣabr ḥelū. |
| “I probably won’t show up.” / غالباً مِش هاجي. |
| 3'aleban mesh hagy / ġālban meš hāǧī. |
| “How are you? How are things?” (Common Egyptian greeting) |
| ezzayyak, 3amel eh? |
| Note the “3” in 3amel. |
| “What happened?” |
| ----5eer, 7asal eh?/ 7'eer, 7asal eh? |
| Note the “5e/7’e” in 5eer/7’eer, and the “7a” in 7asal. |
| “Patience is good.”(Egyptian proverb) |
| ----el 9abr 7elw/ el sabr 7elw. |
| Note the “9a” in 9abr, and the “7a” in 7elw. |
| “Probably, I won’t show up.” |
| ---- 3'aleban mesh hagy |
| Note the “3’a” in 3’aleban. |
Outro |
| Franco-Arabic is very convenient when using phones or computers that don’t Arabic installed, and it has been very popular for more than a decade now. But, did you know that many people in social media are starting to lean more towards writing Dialect Arabic in Arabic letters, in hopes to keep the Arabic alphabet alive and thriving? |
| Pretty interesting, right? |
| If you have any more questions, please leave a comment below! |
| Bye! إلى اللقاء(ʾilā al-liqaāʾ) |
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